Nintendo To Help Japanese Third Parties Bring 3DS Games Out Internationally

There’s some amazing Japanese games that we just don’t see come outside of the country. Now with the success of the 3DS in Japan we’re seeing even more great games come to the system from Japan’s top developers. “Handheld devices occupy a large share of the video game market and software for handheld devices is important in the video game business in Japan, Japanese software developers are eagerly assigning their top teams to develop key titles for Nintendo 3DS.” Iwata told investors today.

This doesn’t happened outside of Japan often though, most western developed 3DS games aren’t by ‘top tier’ development teams. “Recently, third-party software developers overseas have been inclined to focus on mega-hit titles for home consoles and have had less of their development studios develop software for handheld devices. Some developers, which make game content suitable for children, work on titles for Nintendo 3DS, but they are not as active as the time of Nintendo DS.”

So if third parties aren’t going to step up to the plate in the west, Nintendo’s going to help bring the great games from Japan to the west to help fill the gap. Professor Layton was cited as the perfect example of this. “We will increase the number of such games for the U.S. market as well as in Europe. We are also willing to flexibly assist third-party developers in distributing their valuable games overseas.”

Nintendo’s on the right path here, they’re not only a hardware developer but since they make games too – helping out third parties should be a top priority for them.